The Sign of the Four
by quadrophenia718
Summary: Alternate Season Seven. Buffy and gang, with the help of two other Slayers, fight to fullfill an ancient prophecy.
1. Prologue

Prologue  
  
Villagers came from all around to see the old woman crouched in her hut. It wasn't an everyday occurrence to find a true seer, and many people hoped that gazing upon her wizened features, she could cure them of any ills that they might find themselves faced with in the times yet to come.  
  
The Elder sat beside a fire all day that reeked of scented herbs and spice. No flaps were open to let the breeze escape, and the air inside was stifling and hazy. Every visitor left feeling light-headed and watery-eyed from the lack of breathable air. The woman herself seemed to remain unaffected, at least as unaffected as a muttering old crone was ever likely to seem. She sat on the same bear-skin mat all day and all night, muttering and feeding sacred herbs to the fire. Dry ones made it crackle and pop as the red, orange, and yellow flames greedily ate up the offering, while damp ones smoked and made the air even thicker as their contents slowly evaporated.  
  
Today, the old woman stared the same way she always did into the flames, but today things were to change. There was silence in the hut - even the fire seemed quiet. And then the woman spoke: "As the outlook becomes bleak," her croaking voice crooned, "Fire, Earth, Water, and Earth shall cross land, sea, and mist, to become one in an alliance to last for all eternity. Only then will anything be resolved."  
  
The People who had gathered in the hut looked impressed. And then there was silence.  
  
*******************************************  
  
The air was surprisingly cold for southern California as the lithe blonde left the warmth of her house and friends to go out in it. She rubbed at the sleeves of her jacket and looked up at the stars, which stood out clearly in the frigid air. Each one shone with perfect clarity like the diamond studs she had absently stabbed into her ears that morning. Caustically, she wrapped her long arms about her body and watched as her breath curled up in smoke tentacles in front of her.  
  
She was special, this girl: each move she made would be recorded into the tapestry of time.birth, life, and death. Yes, she was special - the Chosen One. The one to fight against evil for the course of her natural life. Doomed to die an early death, she repelled the forces of darkness as they made their bid to conquer Earth.  
  
Or at least this what she had been told nearly every day of her life since her fifteenth birthday. Sometimes, when the fight became nearly too much for her to bear, she would repeat it silently to herself over and over like a record that has been played too often.  
  
This was what she had been told; this is what she had come to live her life by, yet she was going to discover very soon that the very foundations she had built her existence upon would be shaken by a force stronger than any she had ever faced, and that her true purpose would be revealed to her soon.  
  
******************************************  
  
Newly freed, the tall, curvaceous brunette ran one long slender hand through her mane of hair. She was confused, desperate, unsure of everything she had ever been taught to believe. Even, indeed, if she had really ever been taught anything - nothing that had ever made the slightest bit of difference, anyway.  
  
New-found freedom and she didn't know what to do with it. She found herself desolate, crawling in the endless dark of the peculiarly long tunnel that had been the course of her natural life. The Chosen - that's what she had been told for years: that she was special, one-of-kind. But it hadn't mattered. It hadn't given her the purpose that she had hoped it would. Maybe it had even made things worse.  
  
Glancing up, she caught a glimpse of the first star - so clear that it shined through even the thick smog of L.A. Refined, beautiful, a beacon of hope in the great void of night.  
  
She too would have her purpose revealed soon.  
  
******************************************  
  
A redhead ran along the dirt road into the great expanse of night. Her heart thumped against her breastbone, her lungs screamed for air and the muscles in her legs grew tight as they clenched and extended with each leap. Running: running towards, running away, she did not know, but she kept on running.  
  
To be chosen, to fight evil as it manifested itself on Earth - that was her purpose. No matter what, she had to keep going until one bad night for her or a lucky one for her prey would end the cycle. Until then, things moved in an endless cycle that she could not escape.  
  
So she ran - following the path her prey had taken, she continued on, wondering to herself if this fight would finally end the cycle. End the trial and she could rest. Knowing that death lay at the tunnel, she wondered if she would ever serve her purpose, if such a thing really existed for a person.  
  
But what her purpose was, she would not discover then. But eventually, the mists would clear and the path would be shown clearly to her tired eyes.  
  
******************************************  
  
From the shadow of surrounding buildings, dark eyes peered out into the gloom of the neighborhood. They belonged to a beauty, though this was currently hooded in a protective black cloak. The owner of the eyes watched with the cool observation of a huntress, taking in any shift in the mist. Her keen hearing was perked so that it picked up the slightest noise, despite the muffling qualities of the thick fog.  
  
Crouched cat-like in the shadows, waiting for her target, she thought about what she was doing and how this might be the night that something finally ended her existence. A coffee colored hand came up and touched the cold brick of the wall next to her for reassurance. She had been waiting for hours, and there was no guarantee that she wouldn't be waiting for many more.  
  
She wouldn't have to wait for long. 


	2. Chapter 1: Something Old, Something New

Chapter 1  
  
Siobhan O'Hallohran swore under her breath as the wind of the desert whipped her curly hair about her face. "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph." Each intake of air burned her lungs and made her wish that she had been born as one of those many creatures who did not need oxygen to survive.  
  
Her legs pumped with the energy and lactic acid made each long muscle cramp. The vampire she was chasing was gaining on her. "Benefits of not needing to breathe," she panted to herself. "Bloody bastard." Another spurt of energy and the gap between them closed slightly. "Fucking fags," she swore again. "I knew I should never have picked that particular vice up." Her feet pounded against the dirt, each step echoing in the black. If it hadn't been for her superior night vision - one of the Slayer perks, if only one of the few - she wouldn't have been able to see her prey at all. The moon was obscured behind a thick cloud, and it looked like there would be rain soon.  
  
She leaped over a dry piece of underbrush and grunted in satisfaction as her Army-issue boots thumped against the sand. Time to end this, she thought savagely and reached into her inside jacket pocket for the stake she had stuck in there. Chasing vampires was all fun and good, but her lungs were screaming for air that she did not have time to stop and take. Pumping her legs faster, she put in a fresh burst of speed and observed with satisfaction that the gap between her and the vampire continued to shrink until it was non-existent.  
  
With a flying leap, she tackled the creature, bringing it and herself into hard contact with the firm ground. Dust clouds billowed out around her. A rough and tumble ensued and she wrapped her long legs around the creature's hips for leverage. They came to a stop, Siobhan triumphantly straddling it. "Mama always said never to run with sharp objects," she crowed positioning the stake over the vamp's chest. It snarled. Jamming the weapon home, Siobhan winked, her smirk feral. "Guess there are exceptions," she whispered in its ear as it turned to dust and her pelvis came into quick contact with the hard earth.  
  
A gust of wind blew the creature's remains away. Yes, it was definitely going to storm; she could smell it on in the air. Standing up, she brushed off the seat of her trousers and contemplated returning to the one- speakeasy town whose borders she had left in the pursuit of the vampire.  
  
Sunnydale. Sunnyhell. Boring, boring, boring. Dull, dull, dull. Her mission had been to take the bottom out of the bootlegging market in Sunnydale and, given the fact that it was run by the evil undead, she had done that very thing. Unfortunately, however, all the excitement had just blown away with that vampire's dust clouds, and she was once again stuck without entertainment until the next train to Los Angeles. From there she could get to Denver, to Chicago, and then back to sweet New York.  
  
New York was where Aidan was, and Siobhan found the very lack of entertainment in Sunnydale more acute without the presence of her Watcher - not her Watcher, she reminded herself with a smile, her lover. Sighing, she reached into her pants pocket for her pack of cigarettes and the book of matches she always kept with her. Lighting one, she puffed on it absently and started walking towards the dim patch of lights to her right.  
  
Aidan. Dear, sweet Aidan. She didn't love him. Actually, given the knowledge that she was to expire any minute, she didn't really allow herself to love anyone. But, she was fond of him; their alliance was one of mutual benefit simply because, deep down, the need for human contact ran rampant in everyone. That need had manifested itself the night before she was to leave for California.  
  
She knew that the motivation on his part was largely because, as she had reached her twenty-second birthday, he knew that her time was running short. Hell, she knew her time was running short and her need to fuck anyone, anything, was enough to make any chemistry that had previously existed between them boil over into one night of coitus.  
  
Siobhan did not pretend to be a rational creature. She was an animal, pure and simple, and her desires, though somewhat reasoned and rational, were primarily animal in nature. She did not have the opportunity to be anything more.  
  
There was a time, she remembered, when she had spent her free time curled in a windowseat, afghan pulled tightly against her and a fire burning in the grate two meters away. She was quite the reader then, fond of Dickens and Austen and anything she could get her hands on. Then her parents had never come back from a pleasure cruise while she was at an aunt's in Marseille, then her aunt turned on her and relegated her to second-class citizenship, then she had run away, ending up in Paris. First she stole, as she was still young enough to pass as a boy; then, after an awful night where she had been picked up by the cops, she had been stripped while they looked for goodies she might have hidden on her person. Her secret ended there and she was beaten and raped and tossed back out on the streets of Paris, sobbing, scared, and naked.  
  
That was 1914. She survived for six months as a boy and for an additional three as a hooker, the ultimate humiliation. Then, March 1915, Aidan rescued her and brought her back to her original home in Ireland. To train. To kill. To eventually die.  
  
She had been Chosen two days after her eighteenth birthday, after the other Slayer had met a sticky end in Istanbul. Aidan had told her later that the sticky end had been delivered by the hand of a British lieutenant who had caught the Slayer after curfew. In possession of a new-fangled Tommy gun, the Slayer, with all her charm, beauty and magical strength, never had a chance.  
  
And that's what she had been doing ever since. For awhile it had been easy for Siobhan to ignore human urge and become a machine, living and breathing her duty. But she soon realized that the life of the Slayer was too short not to live and she began to throw all of her spare moments into every vice she could - sex, heroin, cocaine, cigarettes. She was going to die early as it was, she might as well have fun before she did.  
  
Siobhan continued walking. Her first cigarette had burned until it had reached her fingers. She had walked a bit more and then lit another one. This one she was puffing absently. The all-night lights of Sunnyhell were winking out even as she approached them. It was the coming dawn, shining through the storm clouds gathering overhead. The first drop of water landed on the tip of her long nose. She crossed her eyes and blew a smoke ring defiantly, all the while walking towards the town. She hadn't realized that she had run quite this far out of city boundaries.  
  
A flash of lightening lit up the sky and a clap of thunder followed almost immediately. Siobhan swore loudly as another raindrop hit her shoulder, quickly followed by the next.  
  
Tossing her cigarette on the ground, she started jogging towards the outskirts of town. The drops were falling faster, splattering around her and on her red hair over and over again. There was another flash of lighting, this time right around her. A clap of thunder followed, but the redhead was not there to hear it.  
  
Everything went white, then returned to focus. Siobhan looked around at the sudden unfamiliar surroundings and cursed again. "Bloody hell!"  
  
***********************************************  
  
Fatima Hassan watched from the shadows of the building. It was bitter cold outside and the wind blew trash around in twirling cyclones. She buried herself deeper into her dark green cloak, waiting for her prey to come along.  
  
At the age of twenty-one, she had been fighting evil for five years and it hadn't gotten any easier. When she had discovered her supernatural powers, she had gone through her uncle's supernatural library and had come up with a name for what she was. She had always been rather awkward, and newly discovered reserves of strength and reflex had only made a tough childhood more difficult. There was never a name for what she was - she just was. And then, in the dark corners of her uncle's back room - a room filled to over-flowing with contraband books that he sold on the black market - a dusty volume with a cracked red leather cover. Dust came off of it in puffs when she removed it from the shelf. The Slayer. She who has been chosen to battle the forces of evil. Heavy job, and Fatima had discovered her heritage and thrown herself into it with a vicious enthusiasm.  
  
The Slayers of old had had assistance - Watchers to train them in the ways of battle and the powers of the supernatural, but Fatima had had no Watcher. She was alone. Her uncle, a Shaman of no small power, told her that the Watcher's Council had fallen into disrepair after something known only hazily as the "great alliance", but that the details had been lost to the sands of time. In actuality, as humanity entered the second Dark Age, the old texts were burned to make way for propaganda and lies.  
  
Fatima made her living hiding in shadows, killing those beings of evil that had managed to escape when whatever had happened a hundred years hence, had happened. The theory was that the Slayer's lifespan was short, but Fatima had survived for five years on home training and a poor supernatural library.  
  
Her nostrils flared and she peered into the mist that rolled down the streets in gusts. The prey was coming. She reached for the stake strapped to her waist and slowly worked it out of the holster she had sewn for it years ago. A new demon had moved into the Town recently; her uncle had assumed that he had come to search for a way to destroy the progress that had been made all those years ago, though he had no idea how the demon intended to manage it.  
  
It's funny, she thought shrewdly as she looked at the empty and untended streets, yellow with grime and pollution, evil is stopped and humanity destroys it all anyway. There were allusions in her uncles' books, to freedom, to glory. Fatima had never known that. Sometimes, if her uncle and her mother had had a little too much to drink, they would talk about their youth and the extreme freedom that existed before the coming darkness.  
  
There was movement, and Fatima tensed in the darkness and clenched her weapon tightly, taking some small comfort in the firmness of the woodgrain in her fist. Super-elevated night vision was a plus as she watched the shifting clouds of unhealthy gas for any movement against the flow of the wind.  
  
Suddenly, there was movement. The muscles in Fatima's legs tightened as she prepared to leap. Out of the mist, a vampire emerged. Fatima didn't wait: she jumped, using the power in her legs to knock the vamp down on the cold, damp, and filthy ground. It snarled at her and bared its fangs.  
  
"Oh shut up," she said, straddling it and positioning her weapon over the creature's heart. "Now, you're hardly an honest chap, so why don't you tell me where your demon friend Ajaz is hiding."  
  
It snarled again and tried to get up. Fatima grabbed a lock of hair and slammed its head back down onto the pavement with a sickening crack. "Fine," she hissed, "I'll just track your scent." She rammed the weapon home and the vamp turned into a whirlwind of dust that joined the pieces of trash as they blew down the street.  
  
She pushed herself to her feet. A drop of moisture landed on her hand as she resheathed her stake. Glancing up, another drop landed on her eyelashes. Shit, she swore silently; it was very likely that should it start to pour, the acid concentration would eat through even the heavy lining of her wool cloak. Not only that, but it would wash away the vamp's tracks and leave the smell of sulfur. Wrapping her cape tightly around her, she plunged through the haze in the direction the ex-vampire had come from. She needed to find Ajaz. It wasn't so much that she thought that Ajaz presented any sort of threat to the well-being of Los Angeles-Sunnydale's population, it was just that any demon overlord was a pain in an ass and an affront to her heritage as the Slayer.  
  
It was her duty to take care of it.  
  
And, no doubt she would have managed it had not the storm that had been eminent, finally unloaded upon the great city below. It was sudden: a few drops became a great many very quickly and lightening and wind slammed down upon the sleeping town with ferocity. Fatima found herself caught in the middle and could feel the burn of the acid rain on her skin. "Fuck," she growled and pulled her cloak hood over her face. She ducked into the shadow of a building, pressing herself against the dark, dank wall to further shield herself. The brick was pitted with marks from past storms. The acid was capable of stripping paint.  
  
Suddenly, there was a crash - a sound similar to several trash cans being knocked over at once. Fatima tensed, but there was a flash of light that momentarily blinded her. She threw her hands over her eyes reflexively, even as fear coursed through her body. Perhaps she had misjudged Ajaz's capabilities and he had been able to overturn whatever had been accomplished so many years ago. But it was her job not to let that happen. Baring her teeth, she reached into her boot for the knife she always kept hidden there and opened her eyes to the glare.  
  
She saw a street lamp, but not a street lamp that she had ever seen before.  
  
***********************************************  
  
Buffy Summers felt a tingle at the back of her neck, something akin to the feeling she got when she was being watched. Slowly, she reached for the crossbow she had strapped to her back before she left. The wood comforting, she turned and peered into the darkness, bolt cocked and ready for fire should anything dare to move. She maintained battle stance for a full three minutes and nothing happened. The feeling faded as abruptly as it came.  
  
"Lord, Buffy," she murmured, "you're getting just a little too paranoid."  
  
***********************************************  
  
Faith was absently fiddling with the zippers on the suede jacket she had just bought vintage. Every thing cheap and cool came vintage.  
  
Suddenly, the wind shifted, sending the hairs on the back of Faith's neck to quivering. She sniffed the air, her body poised in the same stance she had used in the days before her incarceration. It could be a vamp, she thought and looked around her for any piece of discarded rubbish that could be turned into a weapon. Beside her, there was a piece of broken plank. No doubt it would snap should she be forced to use it, but it was certainly serviceable enough to bring down at least one blood-sucker.  
  
Her fingers groped for the comforting feel of the splinter. It was grimy, but it gave her a sense of security. She never had to use it, however, and after a moment, the feeling faded.  
  
***********************************************  
  
"Fucking hell!" Siobhan swore as the cold air of wherever the hell she was, cut through the material of her jacket. She whirled around her. "Where the fuck is the warlock that just did this!" she yelled into the night and reached for the stake in her jacket. She caught sight of the ground beneath her feet.  
  
"What the fuck is going on!" she cried even louder than before. Whatever it was - and it wasn't anything she had ever seen before - was black and thick. Okay, this was really fucking weird.  
  
She glanced around her. She was standing on what appeared to be a street of some kind lined with squat, very ugly, shanties. They seemed to be in good condition, though, and the row was well-lighted by a series of streetlamps. She could see. The interesting thing was that the streetlamps were electric - not a lantern in sight. And then she saw it, skulking in the shadows at the end of the row. "Vampire," she hissed. Ducking low to the ground and making sure she was out of the light of the lamps, she dove behind a bush. She'd lie in wait to see if it came her direction. Damned if she was going to allow any demon to kill her when she was this confused.  
  
It moved cautiously down the street, occasionally stepping into the pools of light under each streetlamp. She gripped at her stake and watched. The reason it had appeared so shapeless from afar was that it was covered from head to foot in a thick, dark-green cloak. Someone's been watching too much Bela Lugosi, Siobhan thought crossly.  
  
It came closer and closer before passing to her right. Just as it moved slowly past with dainty, lithe steps, Siobhan sprang out of her ramshackle hiding place and tackled it. Knocked off balance and taken by surprise, the creature was unable to react as Siobhan rolled so that she was straddling it, her stake strategically placed over it's breast-bone. The hood of the cape flew back and Siobhan found herself looking into deep brown, almond-shaped eyes, not the golden, demon ones she had been expecting. The girl - for that's what she very clearly was - did not look afraid. "Jesus," Siobhan gasped, "you're not a vampire."  
  
The girl tensed and raised a fist. In one fluid movement, she lashed out with a square right hook and stood up. Thrown backwards, Siobhan felt her stake leave her hands. "Damn it," she snarled and used her Slayer speed to jump to her feet. Her enemy had thrown the folds of the cloak behind her and had pulled a very long, wicked blade.  
  
"What are you?" the girl hissed. Her accent was strange, Middle-Eastern perhaps.  
  
Siobhad had decided that whatever this person was, she probably wasn't dangerous as long as she put down the bloody knife. But she was not willing to relax until the knife was safely away - preferably in her own hand. "A hunter," she said after a minute, figuring that was as good an answer as any. She wished she had thought to bring along another weapon of some kind besides the stake that had been so easily knocked from her hands. Aidan always said my arrogance would kill me, she thought wryly.  
  
"You called me vampire," the girl went on, circling Siobhan slowly. She obviously had been well-trained. "I am not a vampire."  
  
Siohan snorted. "I did correct that mistake." She made her voice sound nonchalant, but what she was really trying to do was throw the girl off balance so that she could take that damn knife away. The problem was that she was holding it like she knew how to use it, which would make it more difficult.  
  
"And you are not one either," the girl continued, ignoring Siobhan's sarcasm. "So what are you? Why do you know about them?"  
  
During this last question, the girl let her shoulders loosen slightly; Siobhan saw her chance. She lunged forward and kicked the girl in the hand, making the knife fly through the air. The girl gasped and Siobhan used her momentum to shove her to the ground. Running, she followed the blade's trajectory and caught it on its way back down.  
  
When she turned, the girl was already on her feet and was squatting in battle stance, looking a bit miffed. "Here's the deal," Siobhan said approaching her slowly and grinning, "I have the weapon right now; I ask the questions. You don't have the weapon; you answer the questions. D'accord?" The girl nodded. "Where are we?" the Slayer began without preamble.  
  
"I had hoped that you had the answer," she answered.  
  
"You mean you don't know?"  
  
"No." She shrugged and continued. "My name is Fatima Hassan. My purpose in this world is to kill vampires, demons, and anything else that threatens the future of the human race. I am the Slayer."  
  
How did she..? "How do you know about the Slayer?"  
  
"I am she." The girl looked hopelessly smug.  
  
Siobhan laughed coldly. "No you're not. I don't know how you know about me, but there's only one Slayer, and that's me. You're good, but not that good; don't be so fucking deluded."  
  
Fatima Hassan looked irritated. "I am the Slayer. My uncle has a library of the forbidden and I saw the history of the Slayers and knew that I was one."  
  
Siobhan chose to ignore the ridiculous way that that sentence came across. Or to ask what the hell the "forbidden" constituted. "Do you have a Watcher?" Siobhan asked. "No? Then you're not the bloody Slayer. I am. There's only one. When I die, there'll be a different one."  
  
Her foe snorted. "What's your name? I told you mine."  
  
Figuring it wouldn't do any harm, she told her. "Siobhan O'Hallohran. The Vampire Slayer."  
  
Fatima's eyes widened. "You're her! You're her!"  
  
Siobhan had spent a lifetime being a bitch, and she wasn't about to stop now. "You are she."  
  
"Pardon?"  
  
"Your grammar's wrong."  
  
Again, Fatima responded as if she hadn't heard Siobhan's sarcastic comments at all. "There are a series of volumes in my uncle's library: the Watcher diaries. I remember yours because your story was so strange. You just disappeared. Perhaps a time portal was opened: that's why you disappeared."  
  
"Am I the only person who finds this decidedly odd?" Siobhan asked, knowing full well that Fatima wouldn't respond to that comment. So, she decided to move on. "Look, as you can see, I'm still here, wherever here happens to be. But then, you're not a Slayer, so I don't even know why I'm still standing here arguing with you. Goodbye; I'm going to find somewhere to buy a drink." She reached down and grabbed her weapon off of the ground. Returning the stake to her inside pockets, she took out her cigarettes. Lighting one, she turned back to Fatima. "Look, love, before you manage to get yourself killed, stop this useless charade."  
  
The other girl shook her head sadly. "Your parents were killed when a German U-Boat torpedoed the passenger liner they were traveling on. You were staying with an aunt in Marseille and ran away when you heard the news, intending to return to Ireland."  
  
Siobhan's eyes widened and she dropped her freshly lighted cigarette. "How do you -?"  
  
"Your Watcher, Aidan Giles, found you wandering the streets of Paris a year later. He brought you back to Dublin and started to train you in various martial arts disciplines. You were Chosen two days after your eighteenth birthday when the previous Slayer was killed in Istanbul. For two years, you returned to Paris to clean up the refuse from the Great War, before the shifting vampire populations sent you to America and New York City." The girl was clearly getting irritated, if the tone of her voice was any indication.  
  
"Look, I don't know - " Siobhan was staring with her mouth agape.  
  
Fatima barged on. "There, you spent an additional two years denting the demon population before going West for a couple of weeks to take the bottom out of the undead bootlegging market." She paused dramatically. "You never returned. And the following Slayers, as well as the Watcher's Council, were unable to find any news of your demise."  
  
Siobhan glared at her. "That's all fine and dandy, but that's all a pile of shit that you can learn from public records."  
  
"Before you left, you fucked your Watcher." Fatima's tone was full of disdain. "Oh yes," she continued when she saw what must have been a look of astonishment on Siobhan's face, "there's detail. He was absolutely hung up on you. In love with you. He never recovered when you didn't return."  
  
"Go to hell."  
  
Fatima's grin was feral and cold. "You were born in 1900, disappeared in 1922. Do you want to know when I was born?"  
  
"No," Siobhan snapped, "but I assume you're going to tell me anyway."  
  
"2100 - 200 years after you. I think we've fallen through some sort of time portal, meaning that neither of us is at home where we are. Based on the architecture, we've got to be somewhere around the late 20th century. Certainly before the fall of Congress."  
  
"What are you going on about?"  
  
"The Time Portal," Fatima snapped. "My past, your future. Jesus, it certainly was a damn good thing for the future of Slayerhood that you disappeared when you did."  
  
"Look," Siobhan hissed and brushed her red hair out of her eyes with a slender hand, "I want to go home."  
  
"To do that, you need to stop being unhelpful, and we have to go find the Slayer of this time. She's the only one that can get us home before we fuck up the future."  
  
"But from the way you've been talking, it seems that I never get home."  
  
Fatima approached her slowly. "I'm sorry, but I just don't know." She reached a cautious hand out and placed it on Siobhan's shoulder in a gesture that was supposed to be comforting. It wasn't. "Come on, maybe we'll find somewhere to get a drink."  
  
Siobhan narrowed her eyes and pulled away angrily. "How do we even know this Slayer's on this continent?" She waited for an answer. "We don't." With that, she turned on her heel and stalked off into the darkness. 


End file.
